Please Rotate Your Device 90
For the best experience, turn your mobile device portrait mode.
Skip to main content
Newsroom
NBC Sports
NBC
Peacock
Media

NBC Sports’ 2025-26 NBA Regular Season in Review: Innovations, Nostalgia, and Milestones

NBC Sports reflects on its first NBA regular season since 2001-2002.

Nbc Sports’ 2025-26 Nba Regular Season in Review: Innovations, Nostalgia, and Milestones

April 08, 2026

With the conclusion of its regular-season schedule and with the 2026 NBA Playoffs beginning next week, NBC Sports is looking back at some of the innovations, nostalgia, and milestones of its first NBA regular season since the 2001-2002 season.

Below is a recap of NBC Sports’ 2025-26 NBA regular-season coverage:

Innovations

  • “On the Bench”: A production innovation that dedicates one analyst to each team and positions that analyst courtside with their team. Since debuting on Oct. 27, the format has been well-received by fans and critics alike, with many praising the chemistry between play-by-play voices Noah Eagle and Michael Grady with analysts Robbie Hummel and Austin Rivers. With typically one game per week on Monday nights, the “On the Bench” format has been used at a wide variety of games and arenas – with a notable example being when Hummel, unknowingly, was seated next to Oscar-nominated actor Austin Butler at a Suns-Lakers game on Dec. 1.
    • “Buoyed by their youthful energy – the trio lays claim to an average age of just over 32 years old – Eagle, Hummel and Rivers brought a new perspective to calling an NBA game…The trio wasn’t just insightful, but also displayed a noticeable chemistry.” – Awful Announcing on Eagle, Hummel, and Rivers
    • In its debut season, “Sandbox” was nominated in the “Best in Immersive Technology” category at the Sports Business Awards: Tech.
    • “If you found your way to your seat, or to a TV (or tablet or phone), you were entertained.” – The Athletic
    • “The consensus following the NBA’s inaugural U.S. vs. the World All-Star Game format was to do it again in 2027.” – Sports Business Journal
  • Sandbox: In this segment, NBC Sports’ NBA Showtime analysts utilize this virtual reality tool where they have control of a glass table – aka, the “Sandbox” – with 3D models of actual NBA players that they can fully control and move around like digital chess pieces. Using this technology, they can break down a specific possession from a game and clearly and efficiently explain each players’ assignment and thought process during that play in an innovative, user-friendly way.
  • Peacock Performance View: Gives fans a new way to watch the game with an industry-first data overlay for the NBA, where casual fans can get up to speed quickly and get into the game while avid fans can use it to deepen their NBA knowledge. Predictive analytics and AI-powered onscreen graphics show fans shooting percentage, hot streaks, and more. A quarter of NBA viewers on Peacock have tried Peacock Performance View this season.
  • Courtside Live: Launched for the 2026 NBA All-Star game, Courtside Live takes multiview to the next level, providing curated camera views that bring fans deeper into the stories around the game. Viewers can navigate between Bench Cams, Star Spotlight, Hot Highlights, and most recently, a vertical feed of the game, all with a picture-in-picture of the main NBC Sports presentation. Available on all devices, Courtside Live was designed mobile-first so fans can watch from anywhere.
  • Can’t Miss Highlights: Peacock was the only platform to have highlights from every single game around the league all season, creating a one-stop destination for fans looking to catch up on everything in a single place. Highlights also served as a point of discovery, with fans able to tap through directly from the clip to a live event.
  • Peacock ScoreCard: Tapping into fan behavior around gaming, Peacock ScoreCard provided fans with a way to make predictions about the night’s matchups by choosing a game card and earning points based on what happens in the game. More than 70% of players returned for another round after playing once.
  • 2026 NBA All-Star: NBC Sports’ coverage of its first NBA All-Star Game since 2002 did not disappoint. A new “USA vs. The World” format created by the NBA revitalized the annual game and capitalized on the Milan Cortina Winter Olympic buzz, with the contest drawing in 8.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo – the largest audience for the NBA All-Star Game since 2011.

Nostalgia

  • Throwback Tuesday: NBC Sports turned back the clock on March 3, bringing members of its NBA on NBC crew from the 1990’s and early 2000s to its broadcast of Spurs-76ers from Philadelphia. Sportscasters Bob Costas, Doug Collins, Mike “Czar of the Telestrator” Fratello, Jim Gray, Hannah Storm, Isiah Thomas, and P.J. Carlesimo took the reins and guided viewers on a fun, nostalgia-filled broadcast that both honored the past and looked ahead to the future.
  • Player Intros: To help make each Sunday Night Basketball and Coast 2 Coast Tuesday game feel “bigger,” NBC Sports went back into the arena for the home team’s in-stadium introductions and videos. Additionally, NBC Sports implemented its famous Sunday Night Football-style player introductions, where players state their name and college, at the beginning of every SNB and C2CT broadcast.
  • Voiceovers: In line with making games feel bigger, as well as a nod to the past NBA on NBC run from 1990-2002, NBC Sports utilized some of its most famous voices from that era – Marv Albert, Bob Costas and Tom Hammond – to voice introductory videos to certain games. Examples include:
  • Roundball Rock: NBC Sports brought back John Tesh’s iconic “Roundball Rock,” the NBA on NBC anthem from 1990-2002, to help elevate the broadcasts as well as highlight the connection between the old and new iterations of the NBA on NBC. Tesh memorably performed the song live at the 2026 NBA All-Star Game.

Production

  • MJ: Insights to Excellence: Six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, sat down with NBC Sports’ Mike Tirico for a series of interviews that saw the Hall of Famer discuss his own career as well as the current state of the NBA.
    • “As I worked on the copy desk during the first segment last week, I realized that I had stopped what I was doing, rested my head in my hand and hung on every word Jordan said. It was only 3½ minutes, but it had my undivided attention.” – Chicago Sun-Times
    • “When the greatest basketball player of all time speaks, people listen — and watch, in this case. It gives the new ‘NBA on NBC’ gravitas.” – Chicago Sun-Times
    • “It’s not like he’s just showing up and saying ‘I’m here.’ He put in the work and effort. The broadcast was seamless because of that.” – Gannon via Associated Press
    • “He’s authentic. Questions that he asked in the coaches meetings, stepping up and asking informed questions of Steve Kerr and Ty Lue. He could have just sat back and listened. No, he’s getting his hands dirty.” – Miller via Associated Press
    • “All in all, Clark was just as natural in her second Sunday Night Basketball appearance of the season. We all hope that she goes on to have a long playing career, but there’s a future in broadcasting if she decides to go in that direction.” – Awful Announcing
  • Snoop Dogg: NBC Sports’ “Ambassador of Happiness” and Olympics correspondent joined Terry Gannon and Reggie Miller in the booth for the second half of the Warriors-Clippers game at Intuit Dome on Peacock and NBCSN on Jan. 5. A Los Angeles native and lifelong basketball fan, Snoop was, of course, a natural.
  • Caitlin Clark: The WNBA superstar and NCAA Division I all-time scorer joined the Basketball Night in America crew ahead of the Sunday Night Basketball debut game of Lakers-Knicks on Feb. 1 and Knicks-Thunder on March 29. Clark even battled NBC Sports NBA analyst Jamal Crawford in a game of N-B-C!
  • Lenny Kravitz: In the vein of Carrie Underwood’s iconic anthem “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” for Sunday Night Football, NBC Sports employed multi-platinum and four-time GRAMMY® Award-winner Lenny Kravitz for the Sunday Night Basketball theme song, which is a reworked version of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation.”
  • The Quiet Work: NBC Sports presented a five-part documentary on Celtics star Jayson Tatum’s road to recovery after suffering a torn Achilles in the 2025 Eastern Conference Semifinals. The documentary provides a candid look at the physical and mental toll that the injury and surgery took on the six-time NBA All-Star.

You Might Also Like